Category:Red wine

Wine and food pairings 5: America’s Test Kitchen pizza

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

America's Test Kitchen pizzaThe Wine Curmudgeon pairs wine with some of his favorite recipes in this occasional feature. This edition: three wines with a thin crust America’s Test Kitchen pizza

Pizza is as much a part of the Wine Curmudgeon’s being as wine and the Chicago Cubs. How could it be otherwise, growing up, going to college, and starting my career in the Chicago area?

But leave Chicago, and pizza becomes something to miss. In the three decades I’ve lived in Texas, I’ve had a handful of great pizzas (not including Louie’s, since Lou was from the Chicago area as well). Hence, I usually make my own, and the thin crust America’s Test Kitchen pizza works much better than I hoped.

This recipe, adapted from from ATK’s Christoper Kimball days (and no, we don’t want to go there) is about as close as you can get to top-notch professional pizza in a home oven. Yes, it’s thin crust, but that’s because it’s almost impossible to replicate authentic Chicago-style thick crust at home. And believe me, I’ve tried.

Plus, it takes just one rise by using Rapid Rise yeast; there is a minimal amount of kneading; and no special equipment is required other than a full-size sheet pan. In all, from taking the ingredients out of the cupboard to eating it, the process takes less than 90 minutes – or about as long as it takes pizza delivery on a rainy Friday night.

Click here to download or print a PDF of the recipe. These wines will get you started on pairings:

• Azul y Garanza Tempranillo 2017 ($10/1-liter, purchased, 13.5%): This vintage of the Spanish red is a little tighter and not as soft as previous vintages; so I enjoyed it more. But there is still lots of cherry fruit balanced by refreshing Spanish acidity, making it’s one of the great values in the world. Imported by Valkyrie Selections

• Three Thieves Rose 2017 ($8, purchased, 13%): Never doubt Charleis Bieler, rose maker extraordinaire who contributes to this pink when he isn’t making the Bieler Sabine or the Charles & Charles rose. It’s another terrific value, sitting somewhere between Bota Box and the Charles & Charles — not too heavy, a little tart strawberry fruit, and a clean finish.

• Familie Perrin Côtes du Rhône Villages Rouge 2016 ($10, purchased, 12%): This French red Rhone blend is pleasant enough, with dark, Rhone-like fruit (not too ripe berries?), centered around the idea that it’s a value-driven, professionally made wine. Imported by Vineyard Brands

More about wine and food pairings:
• Wine and food pairings 4: Oven-friend chicken and gravy
• Wine and food pairings 3: Bratwurst and sauerkraut
• Wine and food pairings 2: Roast chicken salad with Chinese noodles

 

Wine of the week: Moulin de Gassac Guilhem 2016

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Moulin de Gassac Guilhem is a French red blend that tastes like a French red blend, and not something smooth and soft

The Big Guy texted me the other day: “What’s with all these great cheap wines you’ve found lately?” His point? That I have spent much of the past two years wailing about the disappearance of great cheap wine. I’m not sure why we’ve been on such a winning streak, but the Moulin de Gassac Guilhem is one more terrific $10 wine.

The Moulin de Gassac Guilhem ($10, purchased, 13%) is from the Languedoc in southern France, home to much cheap wine of indifferent quality and to not so cheap wine that tastes cheap. This red blend, though, is what the French have done so well for centuries: A professional, well-made vin ordinaire, the sort of quality wine for Tuesday night takeout that seems to be disappearing.

The blend – made with a little more syrah than grenache and carignan – offers rich, dark red fruit, some spice, a bit of that funky French aroma that I like, and well developed tannins and acidity. In this, the latter are quite impressive for a wine at this price.

Drink this with dinner — delivery pizza, burgers on the grill, and even fajitas or enchiladas and burritos.

Imported by Vanguard Wines

Expensive wine 118: Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant 2013

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Le Cigare VolantThe Le Cigare Volant shows screwcap wines can age with style and grace

Randall Grahm, the Boony Doon impresario who only uses screwcaps, has insisted for years that wine ages under screwcap. This remains heresy in the wine business, which has grudgingly allowed that screwcaps are OK for cheap wine, but not for fine wine that can cellar for years. Which means not enough of the wine business has tasted this vintage of the Le Cigare Volant.

The Le Cigare Volant ($45, sample, 14.5%) is the Bonny Doon flagship, a fine red wine made in Grahm’s trademark Rhone style. Hence, Old World style and attention to terroir, but New World sensibility and technique. That means subtle tannins and a clean finish, but earthiness and spice (cinnamon, in the way it can be almost chili hot) on the front. There is also a mix of red and fruit black fruit (raspberries and plums), plus an almost gaminess that you don’t expect from California wine. Despite the high alcohol (and very high for Grahm, who prides himself on restraint), the wine is neither hot nor overwhelming.

Grahm says screwcap wines age differently than cork wines, which is not bad – just different. That this wine is still so young but intriguing speaks to this; as it continues to age over the next 8 to 10 years, the Le Cigare Volant will become richer and more complex, and it’s complex already.

Highly recommended. Serve this with lamb or duck, and enjoy not just the wine, but how easy it is to open the bottle.

Wine review: Clos Chanteduc 2013

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Clos ChanteducClos Chanteduc, a French red Rhone blend, is the kind of wine that reminds us why we love wine

The Clos Chanteduc is the kind of wine that explains why the Wine Curmudgeon loves wine: It’s not just that its sum is greater than its parts, but that it’s so honest and so direct that when I taste it, I can imagine sitting in the French farmhouse near where the grapes are grown.

Am I being a bit too poetic, especially given how cranky the last 18 months of wine tasting have made me? Nope. That’s the reason for all my waxing – because this wine has nothing to do with the overpriced plonk that I’ve had to plow through to do my job. The Clos Chanteduc ($18, purchased, 13%) is what red wine from France’s Rhone should be:

• Funky, with that appealing rustic aroma, yet also fresh.

• Fruity, with lots of wonderful red grenache fruit, but also earthy – forest floor and mushrooms, from the syrah in the blend.

• Traditional in style, but done with modern winemaking. How else to explain this quality for this old a vintage at this price?

I didn’t know this when I bought the wine, but Clos Chanteduc is owned by cookbook author Patricia Wells and husband Walter. Wells made her name writing about French bistro cooking (I own a couple of her books), and the wine fits that style perfectly. It’s steak frites and roast lamb with potato and tomato gratin and chicken braised in red wine – the sort of food to serve your friends with lots of wine and conversation and hope that dinner never ends.

Highly recommended. There are a couple of later vintages, and I would assume they are just as delightful.

Imported by Eric Solomon Selections

Wine of the week: Le Coeur de la Reine Gamay 2017

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Le Coeur de la ReineThe La Coeur de la Reine is French red wine made for those of us who want something affordable, fresh and interesting

Last week, as part of some Skype tastings I’m doing for the American Wine Society, someone asked me why I would drink cheap wine, since it isn’t “distinctive.” My answer was two-fold: First, what’s the point of drinking $50 white Burgundy or $75 Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon with a Tuesday takeout dinner? Second, I’d argue the point that all cheap wine is bland and boring, using the La Coeur de la Reine as an example.

The La Coeur de la Reine ($10, purchased, 13%) is a French red made with a less common grape from a less common region – gamay from the Loire. If gamay is known at all, it’s for Beaujolais, and it’s not the usual red grape from the Loire. That’s cabernet franc, which is hardly well known itself. Nevertheless, this wine does everything a $10 wine is supposed to do – and then some.

Know that it is about as different as $15 Beaujolais as possible, without any of the annoying banana smoothie flavor that shows up all too often these days. Instead, there is lots of tart berry fruit, a suggestion of baking spice, and an amazing freshness that most wines made with gamay don’t bother with. And it is a food wine in the most wonderful bistro sense, in that it will go with almost anything you have for dinner that isn’t in a cream sauce.

Highly recommended, and almost certain to be included in the 2020 $10 Hall of Fame.

Imported by Valkyrie Selections

 

Ask the WC 18: Sweet red wine, varietal character, wine fraud

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

sweet red wineThis edition of Ask the WC: Why are so many dry red wines sweet, plus understanding varietal character and counterfeiting cheap wine

Because the customers always have questions, and the Wine Curmudgeon has answers in this irregular feature. You can Ask the Wine Curmudgeon a wine-related question .

Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
I bought a Spanish red wine from Campo Viejo the other day, and it was really sweet. I thought it was supposed to be dry. What’s going on?
Sick of sugar

Dear Sugar:
Welcome to the scourge that is sweet wine labeled as dry — mostly with reds, but also with some whites. I wrote about it here, and the situation keeps getting worse. A leading Dallas retailer told me a couple of weeks ago that it’s part of the plan to get Millennials to drink wine, and he agreed with me: it’s a stupid idea. I also talked about this with a younger man who works for one of the biggest distributors in the country, and he thought the whole thing was pretty funny. If I’m already drinking cocktails or craft beer, why am I going to switch to wine because it’s sweet?

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Greetings WC:
I consider myself a fairly typical wine drinker. I buy a wine a second time based on how much I liked it and how much it costs. I have no idea if something is “varietally correct” and to be honest I have no idea what a chardonnay is “supposed” to taste like. I just like what I like.
A typical wine drinker

Dear Typical:
That’s a fine approach as far as it goes. But if you want to take the next step and get even more value for your money, then you should learn about things like varietal correctness and what a chardonnay is supposed to taste like. Otherwise, all wine tastes the same, and what’s the point of that? One of the things I love about wine is the differences, and how grapes can taste so many different ways.

•

Hey WC:
I saw something on the Internet the other day that wine fraud is a super serious problem affecting wine at all prices. Do I need to start worrying about it for the wine you write about?
Concerned about counterfeits

Dear Concerned:
No need to worry. This is another of those Winestream Media stories made to sound like it matters, but really doesn’t. Most counterfeiting is for expensive or rare wines that most of us will never see in a store, let alone buy. There’s no money in counterfeiting cheap wine because so much of it is made. It’s the same reason no one counterfeits dollar bills, but does $20s and $100s instead. If it costs $5 to make a phony bottle of wine, what pays more? Counterfeiting a $10 bottle or a $500 bottle?

More Ask the Wine Curmudgeon:
• Ask the WC 17: Restaurant-only wines, local wine, rose prices
• Ask the WC 16: Grocery store wine, Millennials, canned wine
• Ask the WC 15: Wine consumption, wine refrigerators, wine tastings

Wine of the week: Melini Chianti Borghi d’Elsa 2017

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

melini chiantiThe 2017 vintage of the Melini Chianti is as different as it is unexpected

Something odd is going on the current vintage of the Melini Chianti, an almost always dependable $6 red wine. Either the wine is genuinely softer and fruitier, or someone dumped many bags of sugar into the barrels.

The Wine Curmudgeon prefers to think it’s the former. If there is added sugar in a cheap wine as venerable as the Melini Chianti ($6, purchased, 13%), then it’s time to go back to sports writing. And who wants to do that?

Because this Italian red, made with sangiovese from the Chianti region of Tuscany, is much rounder and less sour than it has been for years, with a sort of sweet cherry fruit and a kind of forest floor finish where it didn’t have much of a finish at all before. It’s about as far from the simple, tight-cornered, and tart cherry Melini as possible.

It still mostly tastes like Chianti, but more of a New World version. Again, I don’t know that this is a bad thing as much as it is unexpected. And the Melini still pairs with the usual sorts of red sauces, takeout pizza, and the like.

So chalk the change up to a vintage difference, and hope for the best next time.

Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons